


Small Blessings

by Good_old_fashioned_lover_girl



Category: Dragon Ball, Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Bulma, Demon Vegeta, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, General messing with humans and each other, Lots of flirting through the ages, Unrequited Love, Vegeta pins from afar like the idiot he is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-01-20 19:52:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18532006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good_old_fashioned_lover_girl/pseuds/Good_old_fashioned_lover_girl
Summary: "It all starts with that blessed apple.Well, ok, so, that's not exactly right. In truth, It all starts a bit earlier, with His divine finger turning on the invisible lightswitch of the metaphorical basement of the universe, but the part that really concerns Vegeta starts with the apple."(A Good Omens AU where Demon Vegeta and Angel Bulma are sent to Earth. Eternity of demonic temptation, holy thwarting and general fondness (because you can't hang around humans for 6000 years without something rubbing off) ensues)





	1. Chapter 1

**Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo**

If I can not bend the will of Heaven, I shall move Hell  


* * *

  
It all starts with that blessed apple.

Well, ok, so, that's not exactly right. In truth, It* all starts a bit earlier, with His divine finger turning on the invisible lightswitch of the metaphorical basement of the universe, but the part that really concerns Vegeta starts with the apple.

*It, the big It, uppercase I, dark and light and atoms and stars and time and Life and Him and people and ants and back to atoms to start all over again, the big Everything that makes you a bit ill when you start really thinking about It.

He didn't have much to concern himself with at first. He was perfectly fine with enjoying his (almost) perfectly godly powers, passing the newly invented time by sneering at the very first perfect day (too bright), by squinting at the very first perfect night (too gloomy), and dismissing His ultimate creations, which of course came parading in last, like the providential Made-in-his-image cherry on top of the perfect heavenly cake.

Of course, there were some (one) in the Garden asking questions, talking too much, bright blue spirits following him around for some reason, that he couldn't help but humor, that he couldn't help but answer to, making him...Think about things, things like fate and the meaning of free-will. But he ignored them. He was made knowing what he was, knowing what he was meant to do, and enjoying all of it tremendously, in all his obvious perfection.

Well, theoretically and theologically, he did.

Because that's, really, when it all starts. When the Angel Vegetael blinks up to Eden's fresh brand new Appletree one day (the 9th, in fact), and realizes he's bored out of his perfect mind.  


* * *

  
"Now look what you've done."

He doesn't try to apologize, because it's not like he feels particularly sorry in the first place. He flaps his wings a bit to peek down at the brand new fiery pit of eternal nightmare swallowing their formerly perfect garden below.

It's a particularly rewarding sight.

"I'm looking. Finally something to liven up the place."

His companion rubs at her face with what he realizes is aggravation (it's the first time someone is aggravated with him, that someone actually notices him among the sea of perfectly boring cherubs. He might grow addicted to it.). "This is so bad. And so stupid. We're barely past the first week and one of us manages to screw it all up for humanity."

"How is this all on _me_? It's not like she had to eat the thing,", he says as he elegantly circumvents another screaming and flailing colleague falling into his nice pit. She dodges too, without really paying attention. "Look, you couldn't have known how good those Humans _really_ were till you had thrown a little bit of hardship their way. A little _challenge_."

"They're not supposed to be challenged, Vegetael, they're supposed to name things, skip around and look nice." She sighs as she runs her fingers through her short hair- which immediately fall back around her face in a perfect halo of angelic blue locks, to her visible delight*. "They're not supposed to have free-will. None of us are."

_ *That should have been their first red flag. He'd never met anyone as vain as she. And he personally knew demons of Vanity. _

He frowns down at his accomplices trying to crawl out of the burning hole, trying to grasp at smoldering vegetation, their wings already turning black with the volcanic heat and sooth bellowing from it. _Get back in there_ , he thinks. _Stand by your choices. Have some **pride**._ "What's so wrong about _some_ free-will?"

She doesn't answer, and when he gets bored of watching seraphs falling around them like soft, white, screaming snowflakes, he turns his head to look at her. She looks like any other angel- gorgeous, bright, but her perfect brows on her perfect face are frowning. He's never seen another angel frown before. "I'm not...sure. I'll have to think about it."

"You're not supposed to think about it,", he points out.

She fidgets. "I will agree that it's hard to understand. I get it. I mean, I was guarding the doors when it happened, you know? They told me to keep them out with the fire. But that sounded so...Questionably ethical. And they looked so scared, and so cold."

That's when he notices the glaring absence of her flaming sword- and a missing pair of sturdy, angelic sandals.

He stares.

"They would have figured out how to make fire at some point. Eventually. Probably."

He stares harder.

"The poor thing was already pregnant, see."

He stares _harder_.

"...You owe me a new pair of sandals."

"I thought we didn't have free-will?", he smirks. She glares at him before going back to the widening, dangerously crumbling pit. The world is shaking with it. He's shaking too.

"You know, you won't be left alone after this. I feel sorry for the poor sod low on His list who's gonna have to watch over you till the ends of times." Just as she says this, she drops the lock she was twirling and throws him the anxious look of someone who just found out they signed something they really shouldn't have*. "Wait. You don't think He'll really mind, about me, and the fire. Do you?"

_ *Vegeta would grow to know and appreciate this particular look very well in the future, especially around the 17th century, when someone** has the great idea of inventing floating interest rates in very tiny barely legible scribble at the bottom of those contracts bankers assure you are just boring inconsequential lawyering terms while they serve you another glass of what they swear to you is their best brandy. _

_ **That someone was him. _

As if to answer her, the growling pit suddenly collapses in on itself, swallowing the rest of the pleading fallen angels like a monstruous starving beast and belching a fountain of fire up into the clouds once it's done- and Vegetael can finally feel the heat of Hell exploding and reaching him from down below, embers and all. He expected burning pain, but instead the heat engulfs his whole body- warming his feet, his fingers, his face- hurting his yellowing eyes, scorching his hair and wings sooth black, making him feel like he never felt before, making him feel like his decisions matter, making him feel like he's master of his own destiny- _making him **feel** , period. _

He turns to her, his mouth stretching into his very first not-so-angelic smile as hers turns down into a not-so-perfect grimace.

"Oh, Bulmael, I really, really _hope_ He'll mind the fire."


	2. Chapter 2

_Out of Egypt, into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I shake the dirt from my sandals as I run_

 

* * *

 

 **1.**  
  
Hell is deep under his feet, Heaven high above his head, and Eden far behind him, and he's never felt so free as he walks on the burning sands of Earth.  
  
His partner isn't so happy, though. She's been trailing behind him ever since they met halfway between the Realms, one rising up and one floating down to a non-descriptic pile of sun-bleached rocks in the middle of a non-descriptic desert, where two oppositely sided but equally Powerful and Otherworldly booming voices officially told them of their new assignments*.  
  
*They had to cover their ears at some point during the impromptu business meeting, because the two equally Powerful and Otherwordly booming voices were trying to one-up each other by attempting to prove whom out of the two had the Boomiest Voice Around.  
  
"I just gave them one single flaming sword,", she's been whining for days, only stopping to cough up sand. The wind and heat haven't been kind to her angelic appearance. He prefers her like this. Struggling. "One little sword. And then when I asked why, they said I was questioning His Innefability. I just asked questions! What's the use of giving me a brain if I can't ask questions?"  
  
Guardian angel of Earth. Remote on-site agent of the Devil. Officially, stationed locally to influence Humans on the right path** ; unofficially, relocated to the pits as punishment ; even more unofficially, put here to keep an eye on one another till the End of The World.  
  
**The right path is often a matter of perspective.  
  
Heaven and Hell are far, far, behind them now, so he looks down to the sand between his scaly toes, looks up to the burning sky, dodges the confused desert snake she tries to throw at his head, and laughs.

  
**2.**  
  
They hardly pay attention to each other over the first few centuries. They're far too busy to really get into this whole arch-enemies business.  
  
Whenever someone needs help*, she shows up- complaining and stomping her feet, but still reluctantly teaching the Children how to figure out irrigation, herding and, more important than anything, Not To Listen To Any Moron Just Because They Have Wings**. She kind of develops a taste for it- not so much the 'helping thy neighbour' part, but the 'telling others what to do' is pretty nice.  
  
*Really needs help. After the third time she was invoked because they misplaced another camel, she put her foot down. She wasn't gonna be known as Bulmael, Archangel of Thy lost Ungulates if she could help it.

**The full commandment was, Not To Listen To Any Moron Just Because They Have Wings, Or A Silver Tongue, Or Too Many Muscles, Yes, I See You Eve, You Do Know He's Really A Snake Right. It didn't fit on the tablets.

And she grows to like them, too, the humans- and it's not the heavenly, all encompassing Love she was born hardwired to carry for all of His Creation. No, she grows to like their creativity, their unending curiosity. The little contraptions they figure out all on their own. The way they ask questions and demand answers. Soon enough the march of progress is almost all that she pays attention to.  
  
Wherever there's trouble, you can find him. Sprinkling a little distrust here and there. Shifting the scales of a trade. Whispering in Cain's ear what his heart already knows. Halfway through the first century he decides to change his name for something less angelic. Less gaudy and Choir-worthy. Dropping the Ael is enough, and he finally has his own name.  
  
And after a while, he reluctantly admits he's fond of the little ants, too. Fond of their abnegation, of their refusal to take it lying down, of their incomprehensible inner strenght. He thought he was punishing them, but the newly named Vegeta sees them slowly becoming more than what they were written to be. Each individual building their own fate out of thin air. He can't help feeling like he had a clawed hand in that.  
  
Time passes, and with it generations get born and die off, campments then villages then cities rise and fall, and they both stay here and watch it all. Time passes and people forget the past, forget them. They hide their wings, put on period-appropriate eyewear***, and start walking alongside the humans instead of guiding them.  
  
Start noticing how lonely it all feels.  
  
Time passes and one day they turn around, run into each other, and suddenly realize they're really just happy to see an old familiar face.  
  
***Surprisingly, no one in the entire history of mankind has ever reacted well to glowing yellow reptilian eyes staring straight from the pits of Hell and directly into their very souls. Vegeta was getting tired of the pitchforks.

  
**3.**

  
Angels are sexless, unless they really make an effort.  
  
The same basically goes for demons, who are after all fallen angels, and operate more or less on the same basis once you ignore the color switch. But the big difference is, demons are born to meddle in human affairs, and more specifically human vices, and so they usually do make the effort, even if just on principle. You can't be a demon worth its occult salt if you haven't tempted a human or two with a tumble.  
  
Which is why temptation of the flesh doesn't come naturally to Vegeta, but he tries, anyway, just for the form. Any port in a storm, as humans say, and the Sumerian city of Eridu is the best port a demon could find himself in- ripe with debauchery, murder, and decadence*. He just has to walk around the muddy main street to stumble upon the body of a hopeful farmer come to seek the goods of civilization- only to find himself with very empty pockets, and probably a newly forged, very civilized copper dagger planted firmly in his back.  
  
*'Decadence' at this point of Civilization means owning more than two sheeps and taking a bath once a year, but they'll get there.  
  
He doesn't even have to particularly work at playing Succubus, this city is that great. He just one day puts his back to one of the endless Holy Goddess temples growing all over the place like complicated elegant warts, looking around the marketplace through his faceveil to admire the 4000-something tantalizingly corruptible souls living here- when some drunk sumerian warrior suddenly pats his shoulder, before handing him a goat leg along with a very suggestive wiggle of his bushy eyebrows.  
  
He takes some time to get what the plastered son of Adam's getting at, before noticing the array of brightly colored humans similarly waiting in front of the temple's doors next to him, women and men with their bodies in different states of undress, their hands suggestively gesturing to the first tourists in the history of Humanity, and he _gets_ it.  
  
Vegeta doesn't take him up on his offer and maybe curses the drunkard with impotence a little (his biggest sin is pride, after all, and a single rotting goat leg is more than a little insulting), but it does get his wicked mind running ; and that's how he ends up in the newly built palace of some soon-forgotten King Alulim, tensely lounging on pillows as he watches his very own, very first handmade orgy with a mix of horrified fascination and conflicted disgust.  
  
He had no idea humans needed so little incentive to sin so, so very much. He just put on something fancy, strolled in the place, whispered some inane temptation in the ear of the frustrated Queen while slightly opening his short kaunake- and before he knew it, humans were throwing themselves at each other in the middle of the blessed room like he never made Eve bite any fruit and they all forgot clothes _mattered_.

To say he was surprised is an understatement.  
  
He's pretty proud of himself (if disgusted), to be honest. He can see one or two humans doing things they'll very much regret in the next hour or so, a widowed soul who promised eternal love and loyalty drowning in deliciously sinful betrayal, and a few embarassing accidents being born out of this. Husbands and Wives cheating. Eternal shame. And more than that, he sees choice. He sees fire. He sees _free-will_.  
  
So even though angels and demons are sexless, and even though he hasn't made too much of an effort so far, he plays along when some noble gets a bit too close and drunkenly plays with his veil. He kinda wants to bite the hand off, but he also really wants to see how far he can take this. Maybe he can seduce a general and gently prod the embers of the very first all-out war in history out of him, or enchant a King to raise taxes _just enough_ to ruin 4000 daily lives for the next two decade, and wouldn't that be an accomplishment on his personal record? He wouldn't hear a peep from his boss for at least a century, and that's worth a little sacrifice.  
  
The man practically has his hands in his wool skirt when he spots her.  
  
She's standing right there in the middle of it all (as if she just appeared for a courtesy call after feeling a general sense of worrying unholiness in the neighbourhood, _hello there madam, sir, you didn't commit any mortal sin lately have you_ ), wearing a native long dress, her breasts naked but for the heavy copper necklace covering them, a look of disapproval on her face that goes from the now embarassing orgy to the even more embarassing sight of himself with some inferior being groping his mortal coil.  
  
It's like being drenched in ice. He immediately pushes the human away, with more force than necessary.  
  
"It's not what it looks like.". He knows it's a stupid thing to say the second he says it.  
  
She just dismisses him, picking up a naked and confused (but extatic-looking) boy and urging him away like a mother trying to clean a messy room and pushing her kid out to play in the garden for a while. He already knows he's lost this battle when she stomps to the Queen in all her angelic fury and gives her a lesson about responsibility, propriety, and _resisting exterior influences who come from Heaven's knows where, really, you're making my job so much more complicated_ , before turning back to him as humans start dressing back up, and giving him a look of especially strong disapproval.  
  
"Did you have your fun?"

"I barely did anything!"  
  
"You clearly did... _something_ ,", she grinds out as she peeks at an embarassed servant attempting to run out the room and put on his clothes at the same time.  
  
He can't help feeling a bit soothed by her obvious discomfort- the now increasingly familiar excitement of teasing her rising from deep somewhere within him. Funny- a room full of people sinning like Armageddon is fast approaching barely stirs him, but a minute talking to her lights a fire under him that lasts him decades.  
  
Must be the instinctive demonic joy of bothering divine beings.  
  
"What about 'be fruitful and multiply'? You don't enjoy this show of heavenly love?", he illustrates by throwing his arms in the air, pointing at the lavish, suffocating room and its inoccupants.  
  
Her teeth clamp. "Is that what you call this debauchery? 'Love'?"  
  
"Isn't that what it is?", he asks with a proud, mullish tilt of his chin.  
  
He expects a bit of self-righteous smiting in response. Instead, he's shocked to see her eyes fill up with an emotion he can't place, before avoiding his gaze. That's new. And worrying.  
"What now? If you worry for the sanctity of my soul, I'm afraid you're around 1500 years too late, angel."  
  
His veil fails to hide the pity in her eyes. "I just feel so sorry for you."  
  
He has no idea why that one makes him feel so small and stupid. But it does.  
  
He's so embarassed he makes a point of never attempting seduction again, and avoids her for the next century.

  
**4.**

  
Their next encounter doesn't happen until a century and a half later. Vegeta used that time wisely, played his cards right, and now Eridu is in the midst of an all-out siege. The foreign invading army finally managed to break down its front door, and now flocks of warriors are pillaging and killing to their heart's content.  
  
He would be prouder of himself if he wasn't currently huddled in a back alley with a spear sticking out of his chest.  
  
Vegeta honestly didn't think he'd be caught in all of it. Usually, he sprinkles chaos and then clears out once he sees a bad job well done. But it seems humans have grown less naive over time, and one of the king's councellor caught on to his little scheme and took revenge right before the city fell into chaos around them, rendering his mortal body defenceless and forcing him to watch the primitive soldiers run hammock from his hidden spot.  
  
He's never seen his "work" ever play out in front of him for real before. He's surprised to find out he's conflicted over it. It's all backstabbing, raping, and throwing spears at honest working demons for no reasons. He frankly imagined more heroics. Maybe a few glorious hand to hand combat between legendary warriors. Not...This.  
  
He's falling in and out of consciousness until he opens his eyes to a pair of glowing white feet stepping into blood.  
  
Vegeta stares unblinkingly until she crouches down to his level. His vision is blurry but there's anger in her eyes. Her whole body glows with it.  
  
He feels relief. Relief that instead of a lowly human, _she's_ gonna end him.

"Is dying in this body gonna be enough of a lesson for you?"  
  
He tries to answer but only gargles blood instead. He wants to tell her something, anything. _Hurry it up and kill me so I can come back in a new body. I don't like this any more than you do._  
  
_Did you see them killing babies? I didn't ask them to do that._  
  
_There's no pride in that._  
  
_You have to believe me._  
  
He wonders if she can read his heart somehow, because her face softens. "I tried to calm things down. But it seems they only hear what they want to hear." Her smile is bitter. "I can't blame you. You were just fanning embers that were already there to begin with. It's in your nature. Those idiots made the real choices ultimately." She looks down at his chest. "And to forgive is divine."  
  
She cradles his face in her slender hands, the warm pads of her fingers resting on his temples. He leans into the touch without thinking.  
  
"In an hour you'll wake up. And you will be healed and well rested and have had a lovely dream about whatever you like best..." He doesn't hear the rest.  
  
He dreams of the warm sun, the air in his wings, and gentle fingers holding him close.  
  
When he wakes up, the city's in flames and she's gone.

  
**5.**

  
"Can I tempt you with a drink?"  
  
"Why would I want to drink with you?"  
  
He looks around her tent, the late afternoon light filtering through its draped entrance and shining on the mess of parchments and handmade maps littering the intricate carpets. She sits at the lone wooden pulprit at the back of her itinerant home, donning a long white abaya sprinkled with black ink, the collection of scrolls she's been diligently writing for months now sprawled everywhere around and over her crossed legs. She didn't tell him about her new little project of course- mortal enemies and all that- but he was bored, running rampant through Earth without her trying to thwart him at every corner, and decided to spy for a while.  
  
Judging by her lack of surprise at having him suddenly materialize in her living quarters, she noticed him long ago and just didn't care. He's a bit charmed by her wit. "It would be more interesting than writing your little stories. And really, aren't you supposed to help humans or something?"  
  
She wipes her sweaty forehead with her messy hand, leaving behind a black stripe. "Humans can figure out how to share by themselves while I do actual work. And the Testament isn't 'little stories'. It's literally the history of Everything. And you're in it, so it's probably bound to be your favorite bedside read, Prince of Pride."  
  
"Write that I'm amazing."  
  
"Alright. I'll write that your ego, just as your forehead, is amazingly big. Please get out."  
  
"Come on. Just for a bit. We're all alone in the desert. Our bosses won't know."  
  
" _I'll_ know I associated with the Devil."  
  
He huffs in frustration and tries to reach for the scroll she's gone back to writing, hating being ignored. But she grabs his wrist before he can touch it, and from the burning sensation of her slender fingers on him and her eyes glowering with Holy Wrath, he knows he's pushed their current boundaries too far. He jumps back just as she stands up in all her angelic glory, a halo of divine light filling up the little tent in outrage.  
  
"That's _enough_! Get thee behind **M** e, thou **F** oul **S** erpent!". Vegeta can _hear_ the capital letters.  
  
He shrugs and disappears in a blink. Bulmael relaxes, pleasantly surprised, her light dying down.  
  
Then a hand pats her shoulder.  
  
She sighs in defeat as she turns around.

"You think you're very clever, don't you."  
  
"I'm just being polite." He arches an eyebrow. "Drinks?"  
  
"Ugh. _Fine_."

  
**6.**

  
"Why didn't you change your name too? It's been over two milennias since we left Eden."  
  
"There's nothing wrong with my name."  
  
"You'd fit better with humans. And it would be _really yours_."  
  
"Why do you care?"  
  
He pretends he didn't hear her and refills his cup with a flick of his finger instead. "I'm just saying, it could help you relate with the rest of us lowly regular folks a little."  
  
It takes her a long time to answer. Her stare makes him uncomfortable, like he's being read like an open book. Which is impossible, because Heaven knows angels aren't cunning.  
  
"You can call me Bulma if you'd like."  
  
He smirks, pleased with himself. "I'm gonna call you angel."

  
**7.**

  
"He's so cute."  
  
"He looks like a dried date, angel."  
  
The young mother looks back and forth upon the frightening apparitions bent over the child in the manger, their winged bodies silhouetted by the starry night, and wonders if maybe she wasn't better off with King Herod after all.  
  
"Every newborn human looks like that. You'd know if you pulled your head out of your own behind and looked around sometimes. In fact, _why_ are you even here? This is my assignment."  
  
"This guy's supposed to fight _my_ guy in a few millenias. I wanted to take him in. Gotta say- not impressed."  
  
"Don't pay attention M'aam, he'll do great during Armageddon, I'm sure. Won't you kill a whole lot of ugly demons just like that guy over here? Won't you now? Who's gonna die for our sins uh? Who? Oh yes you will. Ooooh yes you will. Oh, Vegeta, he grabbed my finger!"  
  
Mary keeps up the tense, absent smile every new mother with weird invading relatives visiting soon learns, right up until the otherworldly creatures leave, and then swears to both a terrified Joseph and whoever's up there she's never having another baby again, and screw what  Gabriel says.

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

_“You and I, it’s as though we have been taught to kiss in heaven and sent down to earth together, to see if we know what we were taught.”_  
  


* * *

 

 **1.**  
  
They'd never taken any trip together before, let alone one out on the open sea*- but the norsemen tribe who called on them believe that both the forces of light and dark reunited as one is a tremendously good omen, and so they've been invited along to bless the maiden voyage.  
  
_*They don't really count the Ark. Neither one of them wants to remember the Ark**._  
  
_**Listen, all you need to know is, there's a very good reason why Bulma and Vegeta both decided to put all the very nasty critters very far away from their usual range of operation, very neatly on one single nightmare continent where no sane human would ever live. You know the one._  
  
So far the poor sailors' hopes have been disappointed. Vegeta's mere existence throws all sort of minor inconveniences down their path- which Bulma's simple presence onboard thwarts every step of the way. Their entire reserve of food somehow spoils after 3 days- only for them to get a miraculous rain of nourishing fishes on the fourth. A boy falls overboard- only to be saved by a flock of awe-inspiring dolphins. A woman gives birth safely on an auspicious starry night- but the baby is a massive pain in the ass, keeping the entire boat awake for a week.  
  
All in all, it's a pretty miserable experience for everyone involved- save for the two mysterious figures standing together by the dragon-shaped prow every morning and evening, looking onward and quietly chatting in strange tongues.  
  
The man- or what the sailors _think_ is a man- is dressed all in black, the fur hood of his long woolen cape hiding his eyes at all time, which somehow doesn't prevent him from unnervingly knowing what anyone onboard is up to at any given moment- especially if it is nasty business. The lady is an apparition in white, from her elegant gloves to her long warm dress- the pans of her cape flapping into the wind like the wings of an immaculate sea bird, and the divine sight of her would be nothing but comfort- if she didn't look at people like a grandmother looks at very endearing, but very stupid children.  
  
The sailors are divided on whether they are holy spirits or demonic presences. They're right on both accounts.  
  
"Hey,", Vegeta whispers to her quietly one silent morning, as they stand side by side after talking the whole night through. "I always wondered. Why did you talk to me all the time, you know, back in Eden?"  
  
She seems to think a second about that, her frozen eyelashes fluttering awake as the new day's sunlight reaches her angelic face. They don't suffer from the cold much- especially not Vegeta who's as cold-blooded as any snake- but his arm itches to wrap around her shoulders anyway.  
  
"I don't know." She turns away from the glittering calm waves to look at him. Her mischieveous smile is more blinding than the dawn. "Why did you listen?"  
  
"I don't know either,", he mumbles without tearing his eyes away from her.  
  
But he think maybe he does.  
  
  
**2.**  
  
“I summon you, Demon, to this room! I summon you so I may ask you for my purposes. So more be- _Aggh!_ ”  
  
Vegeta brushes the embers off his shoulders and fans away the annoyingly thick smoke that followed his entrance* before looking down. Some tiny and very stunned noseless** bald monk is sitting there on the paved ground of what the demon suspects is his monestary's bedroom (if the uncomfortable itch he feels from the ambiant holiness is any clue).  
  
_*The pyrotechnics are really just for show, but Hell likes doing things with style. Though in 1600 years time, skeptical humans will laugh in Vegeta's face and look for the smoke machine._  
  
_**Vegeta has met Ophanims before, who are literal talking wheels of fire covered in human eyes. Hard to be surprised by anything after that._  
  
He clears his throat and raises his hands in what he hopes is a somewhat esoteric-looking pose. Showtime. "Why have **T** hou summoned **M** e, you measly Son of **A** dam?"  
  
The poor kid doesn't seem to know what to do now that Vegeta's here. He struggles with his rosary, trying to lift the crucifix up with trembling hands. "I-I command you stay in my circle of safety, Spawn of Hell!"  
  
Vegeta blinks and looks down between his spread arms to the freshly drawn chalk pentagram surrounding him. There's even salt and everything. He forgets his demonic voice for a second. "You know those don't really work, right?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Nevermind.". He coughs. "What are you willing to trade your **E** ternal **S** oul for, **S** lave?"  
  
The boy* seems even more uncomfortable now, if that's even possible. He fidgets with an old scroll, his anxious eyes looking everywhere around the unfortunately bare room in his attempt to find something to stare at instead of meeting Vegeta's gaze. Finally, he finds the demon's feet. "...No claws?"  
  
_*Everyone kind of tends to look young when you're over 4000 years old. Bulma calls anyone below 60 "dear child". Sometimes she even hands them candy._  
  
"Seriously? You interrupted my dinner just to check what a demon look like? We're just like anyone else, dipshit, and we have busy schedules too, so if there's nothing else-"  
  
The threat of leaving seems to shake the monk awake. "No, no, wait! It's about a girl!"  
  
Vegeta stops in his tracks to consider this. "A girl."  
  
"Uh. Yeah." The kid at least has the decency to look embarassed. "There's this girl, see, and I know I made a vow of celibacy and all that, but she's so great, and I've been meaning to tell her, I mean, I will, but I don't have any money, and she really likes money, and I prayed but that didn't really work out so you're kind of my last resort and-Yeah.". He looks up to Vegeta with so much hope it makes him want to puke. "Can you help me win her over?"  
  
4000 years. 4000 years of grand scheming, epic battles with the Forces of Good*, and pulling the threads of History, and he's reduced to this. A glorified _matchmaker_.  
  
_*Ok, so, they haven't had that many epic battles for the past millenia or so, but the angel and him still argue over who's paying for drinks sometimes._  
  
He tries to regain his composure. He can turn this around. "Alright. Alright. She likes money. Greed. You want a big pile of dough. Right?"  
  
Baldy has the gall to look offended. When did humans grow to be so cocky? "Uh, no. I want her to like me for _me_. I was hoping you'd give me some advice- the priests here have never even _seen_ a woman I think, and you demons know everything about seduction, right? I don't know, look into her heart and see what she thinks of me or something? Er, without intruding too much on her privacy. Obviously."  
  
Vegeta stares. Then lifts the black hood from his reptilian eyes just to stare harder. It annoys him that the monk barely flinches. "So what you want is.. _.Constructive criticism_?"  
  
"Uh...Yeah?"  
  
"To be good enough for a girl."  
  
"Yes sir."  
  
"And you called _me_. The Prince of Pride. For _relationship advice_."  
  
"Um."  
  
He should curse him. He _really_ should. Transform into his real appearance and really freak the little bastard out, teach him not to mess with occult forces. Maybe straight up burn the whole monastery down.  
  
Instead he looks at the monk from head to toes, and says, "Have you tried working out?".  
  
  
**3.**  
  
He's summoned again just two weeks after that weird encounter with the monk. The surrounding architecture tells him he's operating within another faith this time, and the young, terrified-looking girl at his feet has her hands firmly wrapped around a candle that is very definitely aimed for his head. "Oh my gosh, I didn't think it'd work,", she whispers in awe.  
  
He looks down. This is the worst circle he's even seen. And she didn't even try with the hebrew. "Aren't you too young to summon demons?"  
  
"I'm sorry mister Sheyd sir. Please don't eat me."  
  
"You're too small for a snack," he grumbles. "What do you want?". Probably just wanted to see if she could do it and boast to her friends later. Those happen sometimes. Never twice though. He always makes sure to put the fear of him into them, just so he's not bothered again.  
  
The teenager looks guiltily behind her at the temple's doors, that she very clearly barred with a broom, then back at him with childish determination. "Well, that nice monk two villages over said you helped him out with his fiancee, and didn't even ask for his soul or nothing, and see, there's this boy-"  
  
"Oh for fuck's sake,", he swears while throwing his hands in the air. "I'M A DEMON. A DEMON, people. Not friggin _Cupid_. He's up _there_ , you know. Call _him_ instead."  
  
The girl looks up at him pleadingly, cradling her candle like a lifeline. Her eyes are very wet. And very blue, he helplessly notices. "But no one answers when I pray."  
  
_Because they want you to help yourselve_ s, Vegeta thinks. _Because they don't really care about what they think are tiny problems and tiny lives. They don't care, and neither does Hell._  
  
He looks down at the girl again. She's trembling but determinely meeting his inhuman eyes all the same. She's stuttering about feelings and not being seen and wanting to be worthy and being scared of rejection and how he just _doesn't see her_ and how _only he can help her please please please mister demon-_  
  
He gives up.  
  
"Start by talking to him. You'll repay me with a few bad deeds."  
  
**4.**  
  
"I'm standing in a bowl."  
  
"Um. I didn't have any chalk."  
  
"...But I'm standing in a _bowl_."  
  
"I'm very sorry."  
  
He sighs in defeat, stepping out of his makeshift summoning circle to sit on the poor hopeful man's single, creaking chair. "Alright. Tell me about the one you like. And gimme a fucking drink."  
  
**5.**  
  
"I hope you'll get your love too, Demon."  
  
He whips his head around so suddenly he almost falls off from his perch. "What?"  
  
The old woman he's currently dealing with smiles knowingly from down below, seated at her wooden desk, her quill carefully stopping in the middle of her scrolled confession. "A lot of the advices you gave me sounded like you practiced them before. I hope they worked out for you.". She looks up to him with ageless eyes he's seen a thousand times before. "Though I'm suspecting you're only taking pity on us because it hasn't yet."  
  
For a minute, Vegeta debates jumping down from his spot on the ceiling's framework to choke her with her own pathetic love letter. It would be very easy- as easy as snuffing the candle she's writing by. As easy as burning her hopeful letter. As easy as taking her soul.  
  
Instead, he lies right back down in the dark, his hands wrapped behind his head and his leg dangling down as he observes her happy, youthful smile by the candlelight. "Just shut up and keep writing, grandma. And make it romantic. Compare her to a summer day or something."  
  
**6.**  
  
They usually meet every 50 years or so. Not that they've ever agreed on any specific date or anything-especially not with how Bulma is nowadays, throwing herself into scientific project after scientific project and forgetting to get out of her tower for a century*- but that's roughly the timing they've ended up following. Usually, Vegeta caves in first, and follows her divine aura to whichever city she's holed up at the moment- though she's surprised him a few times by showing up in dungeons and battlefields in the middle of a job, wearing a falsely meekly smile, more often than not throwing him off his game.  
  
_*He regularly hears rumors about an immortal alchemist who doesn't need to sleep or eat, and therefore regularly has to burst in through Bulma's door to remind her to actually act human before someone gets too spooked and decides to **spear her** as well, bless it._  
  
Said work is never really mentioned when they meet up, at least not in details. They usually give each other a quick summary of the current era, of where times are going- compare notes so to speak. Sometimes give each other a subtle hint. "Been a bit hairy down in India, hasn't it? I haven't been there in a while. Have you?". "I was thinking of going on holiday in the americas. That's the future of our field right over there, I'm telling you.".  
  
Their bosses would be absolutely furious if they knew, but they're usually too wrapped up in their own paperwork and hierarchy to notice anything going on on Earth, let alone their two agents fraternizing around drinks. Heaven and Hell are surprisingly similar in how poorly they operate, he finds out through her complaining.  
  
It's through her they chose their current dining place, as well. Bulma has discovered herself a love for food and especially anything sugary that seems to have become the only force on Earth capable of pulling her out of her laboratory, and the little abbey in the newly-named city of Salzburg* serves what she describes as the best strawberry pies in the world. He wouldn't know-he prefers the spicy food of the Eastern regions.  
  
_*Formerly Juvavum, which Vegeta has pushed to ruin along with the Roman empire. It was time for something new. Bulma didn't fight him for it after she saw what the last few emperors were up to. It was, probably, one of their very first Agreements._  
  
"So, I found an interesting codex, recently, in a library in Constantinople,", she says as she stuffs another strawberry into her mouth, unbothered by the raucous patrons of all origins and creeds singing and armwrestling around their little table. They make a weird pair, the two of them, one all in white, the other all in black, talking of seemingly senseless things in as many languages as there are humans in the room.  
  
He hums as he watches her lips. Funny how they redden like that.  
  
"Something about the classification of occult beings. Lots of your colleagues in there,", she continues conversationally as she picks another fruit. "Belphegor. Abaddon. Moloch. Dagon." She pauses for effect. "And even _you_."  
  
That makes him look up to her. Her face is still, but he knows her well enough that he can tell she's seconds away from laughing.  
  
A horrible feeling sinks in his guts. "Yeah?"  
  
A Frank spills his beer on a Viking trader next table over and a brawl starts over the incident. He wonders if he did that.  
  
She turns her head to look at the two men dispassionately, rolling the wine in her glass and purposefuly avoiding the nervous stare he gives her under his dark hood. "It's funny how you all have your own little special duty. Gluttony, Envy, and all that. Very professional. Very _cute_. Of course," she looks at him over her glass, with endless mirth in her blue eyes. "I already know you've been assigned Pride. But there's been a little addendum these past 300 years."  
  
His mortal heart stops. "Angel-"  
  
"Demon of Unrequited Love and _Pining_ , Vegeta? _Really_?"  
  
He covers his face with his hands. " _Fucking humans_."  
  
" _What in the nine circles of Hell did you even do?_ ", Bulma howls just as she flawlessly dodges an unconscious man flying overhead. The brawl has evolved into a full on bar fight. It's definitely him then.  
  
"Nothing! _Nothing_! They just- _Stop looking at me like that!_ "  
  
"Oh Heavenly Lord, you need to tell me everything. I mean there even was an engraving of you, all weepy and surrounded by flowers and all-I got a copy with me, you _need to see it and sign it and tell me **everything** -_"  
  
" _Shut up!_ "  
  
By the end of the night the quaint little abbey is up in flames, and they both get a letter over it- one of reprimand and the other of commendation.  
  
He burns every last copy of that blessed codex that's ever been written, as well.


	4. Chapter 4

   
“The connections we make in the course of a life--maybe that's what heaven is.” 

 

* * *

   
Bulma has always been one for thinking too much, ever since the Garden. It's what made her stand apart from the other angels so long ago, and what ultimately drove her to be sent down to Earth ; she never accepted the truth handed to her without poking at it for a good eternity beforehand, always questioned her superiors, always considered she knew better on the sole basis that she actually _tried_ to know better. It had been the catharsis of her growing tolerance for the Serpent, as well ; he always met her head on, never cowered, always challenged her when no one else ever dared to.  
  
In the past, he did suggest she was thinking too much, that it was the source of her constant frustration with everything and everyone, and that if she stopped trying to fix the world's problems by herself she might actually stop and see easy answers that were right under her nose in the first place. He implored her to follow her instincts for once, to stop and step out of her own head, to try and think of nothing for one single blessed minute. Of course, Bulma didn't listen, because that would have been listening to a _demon_ , and she knew better.  
  
She can't stand that she's thinking of him with fondness even now, even when she should rightfully curse his existence. She can't stand that her brain is desperately scrapping to find him excuses even as she sees the results of his work clear as day on the battlefield.  
  
And Bulma just knows the Crusades were his doing, because she personally had nothing to do with _any_ of it. She just got a heavenly order delivered to her alchemy tower one morning, telling her with the usual pompous angelic flair she was secretely getting tired of to follow the troops to the Holy Land in support of Their Rightful Side. She had been reluctant to leave her experiments and the bustling city of Aleppo she'd been so very careful to raise to an enlightened, peaceful province, but expected to be back within the next decade ; she'd been supervising many scuffles before, and this would just be another one before peace returned, another difficult step forward for the human race.  
  
At the time, she even wondered with some hope if they'd meet afterward. She feels her stomach turn at the thought of sharing a drink with him now, and her memory of him twists and cracks until the image of his smirking face is as revolting as the corpse she steps on with a quelching sound.  
  
There are so many dead bodies layering the ground, and the two armies are- _were_ so large that she can't even see the end of the battlefield on the horizon. It's just miles and _miles_ of slayed innocents, of blood and guts permeating the land with a sickening smell, with only a cross or banner sticking out in the nightmarish landscape from time to time. It's what she always imagined Armageddon would be like.  
  
She's never seen something like this. Sure, she's lived through the Flood, but she was another person then ; she didn't care for humans the way she does now, and there was always the comforting thought that they didn't do it to each other back then. It was easy to blame it all on something else, something greater and ineffable that she couldn't understand or explain, and therefore that she didn't have to think about.  
  
She has something real and tangible and nauseatingly  _familiar_ to blame for this, and it's forcing her to think about it. Forcing her to think about _him_. And the only answer she gets for her desperate plea for his innocence is anger. Anger, and a hatred that consumes her entire soul.  
  
It's that blind hatred that guides her to him, her angelic fury pointing toward his unholy presence in the eye of the conflict like a compass that's impossible for her to ignore anymore. She doesn't attempt to maintain her disguise as she miracles blood-crazed men out of her path to him ; it was only too easy to tweek her angelic androgynous appearance until she fit in the army, but now she doesn't care if the humans see what they think is an armored woman walking among them. She doesn't care about anything anymore. She's tired of playing this sick game.  
  
He's right there in the middle of it all, just as she felt him to be. Dressed in her side's colors, she realizes sickenly, a steel helmet splattered with fresh blood hiding most of his face ; yet her eyes find his immediately even in the general chaos. He just pulled his great sword out of a young (so young) man's eye socket, and his expression is impossible to read, but he drops his weapon the second he sees her and steps forward with something like relief blooming in his yellow eyes.  
  
She stabs him in the chest before giving her stupid brain time to think about it.  
  
Vegeta drops like a stone against her, and her arms automatically rise to catch him without her meaning to. She helps him down as well, gently enough, resting his head on whatever clean patch she can find among all the horrible, horrible blood. She curses and fights her instinct to immediately forgive him, hates that she feels nothing but concern for him as she helps him take off his heaume to breathe better.  
  
"Ow,", he just says when his head is finally free.  
  
Bulma doesn't answer. It's not the first time she's responsible for his death*, be it accidental or not, but it's the first time she feels like maybe she doesn't want him to come back from it.  
  
_*They weren't always on such good terms in the past, and she did somewhat accidentally push him off a cliff or two before. In her defence, he had made fun of her hair._  
  
He slowly turns his face towards her, and she wants to stab him again just for looking like he does now. Not angry. Not angry enough for what she's done, for _everything_ that's happening around them. He coughs up blood before managing to talk."I _know_ you're mad at me, but I didn't do this."  
  
She can't help rising to the bait. She always does with him. "That's what you always say. The flood, and Babel, and Sodom, and every single god blessed war. That's what you always say,", she quietly mutters. A horse littered with arrows falls next to them. She stares at its twitching, slowly agonizing body. "You can't be saved. I need to rid this world of you."  
  
"Bulma,", he desperately whispers with some difficulty, his eyes searching for hers with an urgency she hasn't seen before. She hates that she's bending down to listen, and hates the fact that she waves a hand to render them invisible to the soldiers in order to hear him out in peace even more. "Angel. It's not me."  
  
"Liar."  
  
He doesn't bother answering. Instead, he slips his hand under his coat of mail armor to pull out a slightly charred letter, offering it to her. She doesn't need to read it to know what it is. She's seen him get one of those from time to time- just like he's seen her get one of her own on a regular basis.  
  
They've never read each other's assignements before. It's strictly forbidden to even talk about them. He'd be tortured for all of eternity if Hell knew he handed an angel one of their most precious and secret ploys.  
  
He doesn't seem to care as he stares up at her while she reads, the both of them indifferent to the battle raging around them. They've been in a thousand others before after all, and will most likely be in a thousand more after this one.  
  
Her fingers shake around the paper as she finishes reading it. She stares at him increduously as he coughs more blood before giving her a disillusioned smile. "We had the exact same assignement. Didn't we?"  
  
It's written plain as day. _Go to the Holy Land. Support the papal war. Make them look bad._  
  
"I knew the second I saw you here it was all bullshit,", he grinds out, his usually tanned face unaturally pale, and Bulma knows with a sudden _crushing_ terror it's too late to heal his body now. She drops the letter and slips her fingers under his armor anyway, feeling for his cold chest and pressing down to stop the blood, burning his skin in the process.  
  
He doesn't seem to mind, and firmly wraps his own hand around her wrist for reasons she can't figure out, only hurting himself more by touching a holy being. There's smoke where their skins meet. "They have _no_ control over what the humans are doing- they just pretend they do for the other side's sake."  
  
She shakes her head. "You're trying to trick me. You're trying to tempt me to fall, you old Serpent." She has to believe that. For once, she can't think. Because if she does, then she has to question everything she ever thought she knew. She has to question _Him_ , which she never dared to before, and the dichotomy of Good and Evil, and the whole point of her existence.  
  
Because if what he says is true, then, she just murdered the only person she can talk to in the entire universe for no good reasons.  
  
He laughs weakly at that, and his fingers start to ease around her. "I _wish_ ,", he manages to say. She can already feel him leaving her.  
  
But instead of thinking something out as usual, instead of ending him like any self-righteous angel should, her instincts take over, and she blurts out through a tight, burning throat, "Then I want to make a deal when you come back, demon."  
  
Vegeta's last expression is one of utter surprise ; and he looks like he's about to say something, when the light in his eyes finally fade away.  
  
She thinks she can feel him, or rather the invisible threads of whatever material his soul is made of, leaving the earth, taking along with it a warmth she didn't know was always with her until it disappeared.  
  
She should leave too. Try to stop this madness, or at least escape it. She should pray for humanity's salvation. She should try to save it herself. She should try to find a solution as she always does. She should do something, anything.  
  
But instead she sits on the blood-soaked ground next to what used to be the comforting form of him, and for the first time tries and fails to think while the world falls apart around her.  
  


* * *

  
Vegeta comes back 5 years, three months and 14 days later. Bulma can feel it the _very_ second his soul graces the Earth again, his warmth reaching for her like an inquisitive caress, and her own aura extending a gentle and apologetic greeting of her own.  
  
In his absence, there's been two more crusades, one of which practically destroyed her beloved Aleppo and left her apparently blasphemous lab in ruins. She numbly realized then, as she tried to salvage what was left of her precious experiments, that none of the cities she'd ever resided in were ever sacked while he was still on Earth.  
  
She doesn't attempt a summoning, allowing the demon time to get his bearings first, no matter how much she burns to see him, no matter how lonely she felt these past years. She knows that for all his bravado, he tends to need self-imposed isolation before confronting anything new.  
  
It takes him two more months before materializing in the isolated little danish cottage where Bulma has chosen to wait out the end of the wars. She's back from her daily walk on the cold northern beach one evening, not paying attention to anything but the thankfully empty frozen landscape, lost in thought- and when she pushes her creaking wooden door open, he's right _there_ , nursing a small inferno in her fireplace and complaining that he's _fucking cold-blooded, angel, why can't you ever remember that_ , as if he owns the blessed place. As if he'd never left at all.  
  
She doesn't rush to him in glee and doesn't even cry, even though she wants to. She just drops her dark coat on her bed, quietly sits next to him by the fire, looks into his defiant yellow eyes she missed more than Heaven itself, and tells him his new body looks like shit.  
  


* * *

  
They spend the next few months together, entirely and utterly alone on that empty beach, and if Vegeta misses civilization, he doesn't bring it up. He graciously doesn't bring up the fact that she's the reason he's been absent from it for so long, either, or what he was up to down in Hell. It usually doesn't take him more than a year to get a new body, and she wonders if maybe he wanted to hide from the current mess up here, as well.  
  
She was wondering whether or not their working relationship was ruined, too, but if anything, it seems their last encounter broke down a wall between the two of them she never even noticed was there in the first place. The face he makes the very first time he hears her curse* is absolutely priceless ; and in turn, she catches him doing something nice for her once or twice, more often than not vehemently denying it until she drops the subject**.  
  
__*She always tried to avoid it around him- if only not to give him blackmailing material. Gabriel would have a stroke if he ever heard what she picked from turkish sailors, and she would never hear the end of it.  
  
**It usually involves a warm blanket suddenly wrapping itself around her shoulders, and then the both of them pretending really hard cozy quilts just fall from ceilings to save Vegeta the apparently deadly embarassment of caring.  
  
In fact, it seems they're trying to make up for lost time ; millenias wasted on mindlessly antagonizing one another when they could have been doing this all along, sitting by a fire or taking long daily walks on the beach and talking of anything and everything, discovering each other. Every time they met before, it was quick and always about work ; sometimes, they managed to breach a philosophical conundrum or two, and those encounters always left her wanting for more. Now that they're hidden from the world, she can have as much of him as she wants, and he seems to be just as enthuastic about it than she is- if not more.  
  
But the world seems to want to pursue them both anywhere they hide, however, and a few weeks after his arrival, they each get a commendation for another bloody battle down in Jerusalem. They just look at each other and wordlessly throw both scrolls into the fire.  
  
Bulma watches them go up in flames in morose silence, thinking about all the lives stupidly lost. Thinking about how those things could so easily be avoided. He must be following the same train of thought, because he finally asks, after all those days, "What's this deal you wanted to make, then?"  
  
She doesn't turn from the hearth. "Dunno if I should say. Aren't you gonna disappear with my soul the second we shake on it?", she jokes.  
  
There's not one ounce of hesitation in his voice. "No."  
  
She huddles closer to the fire, her knees drawn up to her chest and her chin resting on her folded hands as she thinks. By all rights, she shouldn't trust him. By all rights, this is one of his elaborate, long-winded plans to make herself and all of humanity fall- _again_.  
  
But she thinks back on his desperate grip on her wrist, and cozy blankets, and the way his soul _feels_ , and just gives up thinking altogether to take a leap of faith and mutter, "Let's make an Arrangement."


End file.
